ANATID.^. 



469 



THE SURF-SCOTER. 



CEdemia perspicillata (Linnseus). 



The Surf-Scoter is a North American bird which has not infre- 

 quently wandered in the cold season to our coasts — especially to 

 the western side, where the influence of the Gulf Stream is felt. 

 Since 1838, when its occurrence in British waters was first recorded 

 by Blyth, two examples have been obtained near Weymouth, 

 three in South Devon, one in Cornwall, two in the Scilly Islands, 

 a young male off Lytham in Lancashire on December 9th 1882, an 

 adult drake at Crofton in Cumberland, and a bird near Stornoway 

 in the Hebrides during the winter of 1865. But its favourite haunts 

 between autumn and spring appear to be in the Orkneys, where 

 at least six specimens have been obtained during the last twenty 

 years, while a far larger number have been identified by thoroughly 

 competent observers. In the Shetlands it has not yet been procured, 

 but Robert Dunn stated that he made unavailing attempts to get 

 within shot of a male in Roeness Voe in June 1847, On the east 

 side of Scotland, one was shot in the Firth of Forth in 1852, and 

 Gould seems to have obtained one earlier. In Ireland several were 

 seen on Belfast Lough during September 1846, one of them being 

 now in the museum of that town ; a bird was obtained at Clontarf, 



